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Time To Revoke JFK’s Pulitzer Prize

by @ 4:44 pm on May 9, 2008.

Back in 1957, soon-to-be President John F. Kennedy Jr. won a Pulitzer Prize for Profiles In Courage, telling the story of Americans throughout history who had displayed political or moral courage. Since then, it’s become legendary and has since become part of the Kennedy Camelot Myth to the point where the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation gives out an award called the Profile In Courage Award.

A nice little story, a future President who wrote a Pulitzer Prize winning history book.

Except he didn’t write it at all:

In his long-awaited memoirs, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History, former JFK aide Ted Sorensen admits he “collaborated” on Profiles in Courage with then Sen. John F. Kennedy.

According to a Wall Street Journal review, Sorensen says, for the first time, that he “did a first draft of most chapters,” “helped choose the words of many of its sentences” and likely “privately boasted or indirectly hinted that I had written much of the book.”

Sorensen also admits that in 1957 — just after the book won a Pulitizer Prize — that Kennedy “unexpectedly and generously offered, and I happily accepted, a sum” for Sorensen’s work on the book.

In other words, Sorensen wrote the book and Kennedy took the credit, and the Pulitzer.

H/T: James Joyner

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One Response to “Time To Revoke JFK’s Pulitzer Prize”

  1. Brett Says:

    Don’t you think you’re being a bit sensationalist? Revoke it over some speculation 50 years later that he *likely* boasted that he wrote more of the book? You know, it’s not that uncommon for non-authors to work with some literary minded people when they write books.

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